Back in April, Elon Musk had the world up in arms after a series of power plays for Twitter. The world’s richest man had been a vocal critic of the social media platform for a while. And one day, he put his money where his mouth was; until he decided otherwise. Now the Elon Musk Twitter deal has officially imploded. So let’s take a look back at everything that went down.
How the Elon Musk Twitter deal started
It all began in April when Musk bought a controlling share of Twitter’s stock. Seemingly on a whim, he became the company’s biggest shareholder with 9.2% of available stocks. The purchase came after a series of tweets about Twitter and free speech. Amid a flurry of speculation, Musk declined a seat at the table as a member of the Twitter board of directors. Then, just a couple of weeks later, the news broke that Musk made a deal to buy the whole shebang. A whopping $44 billion was on the table. But speed bumps in the deal quickly reared their head.
First, there were sexual misconduct allegations levied against Musk by a SpaceX flight attendant. The billionaire allegedly paid $250,000 in hush money. Then came the manic Twitter bot rant after the Tesla CEO waived his right to review the platform’s inner workings. Musk would slowly pull back from the deal after this and even claim the platform wasn’t worth the original offer. After months of near-silence, Musk has officially reneged on his offer to buy the social media platform. But the company could force Musk to follow through on his offer.
What comes next?
At the very least, Musk would owe $1 billion in settlement fees. Musk previously requested access to a “firehose” of data to analyze the number of fake accounts on the site. Though, Musk allegedly never received access. Musk’s lawyer claimed “this information is fundamental to Twitter’s business and financial performance” in a letter to Twitter’s legal team.
Now the two parties are most likely headed to court to let a judge sort the deal out. Twitter will probably ask a judge for two specific rulings: whether they violated the terms of the contract and a ruling to force Musk to follow through on the deal.
